Mileage Monday

It’s the beginning of another week. Seems like summer is flying by. I know some kids are already back in school. Seems crazy that they start this early. Summer is not my favorite season, for more than one reason. But, there’s only a few more weeks until things start to pick up again for the fall. Fall and winter are my favorites. Thankfully, our summer temperatures never got too hot. Oh yes, we’ve had some hot days, and will have some more hot ones before the end of summer. We’ve only had a handful of days over 115. Staying around 105 to 108 for the most part though. We even had a high of 95 last week (or was it the week before?). I’m not complaining.

This summer, we’ve had our fair share of strangeness. A few wildfires broke out in our area. We get wildfires every year, but none ever this close to us. Normally, they stay about 60 or more miles away, but we’ve had two that have reached the Palm Springs area, and that’s only 25 to 30 miles of us. We had some nasty smoke and ash from both fires, but they’re gone now. The Silver fire is the most recent one, and it’s now 95% contained. Hopefully this is the end of fire season.

I did get some exercise in last week. I’m taking some time off from strength training to let my left shoulder heal. Not sure what I did to it, but I think due to a combination of some of my strength training moves and how I vacuum, I pulled something. It’s feeling a bit better, but I’m taking one more week off from strength training. I’m also going to go through my arm exercises and get rid of a few. I know of of a couple that would only re-aggravate it, so bye bye to them.

Since I got my cervical pillow, I’ve had a lot less issues with my neck. It seems to be keeping my neck aligned all night. I still get aches and pains, but nowhere near as bad I used to. So, that was a good $20 spent.

On to the virtual walk stats. I’ve passed through the city of Melvin, KY in Floyd county, and have about 4.5 miles until I get to Mallie, KY in Knott county. I’ve gone a total of 622.6 miles, and I’m going strong. Here are the pictures from last week.

Mile 619.6 (elliptical for 1 mile)                                 Mile 620.6 (elliptical for 1 mile)

                   

Mile 621.6 (elliptical for 1 mile)                                  Mile 622.6 (elliptical for 1 mile)

                   

(photo credit - Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Keep moving!

Getting To Our Destination On Our GA Vacation

(photo credit: www.thefineyounggentleman.com)

 

It's been about a month since we got back from our vacation in Atlanta. I know, I know, I said I'd have a recap by the end of the first week of June. I enjoy doing vacation recaps, but they're sometimes so daunting to write because there's a lot to write about. I also have a very bad habit of thinking something will take me a lot longer to do than it actually does. Does that make sense? Anyway, here is part 1 of the long-awaited vacation recap.

We did a lot of activities on this trip. Lots of fun and new experiences this time around. Getting to Atlanta in the first place ended up to be an adventure in itself. Our flight from Palm Springs was supposed to leave at 7:00 AM, but it was delayed an hour. The storms and tornadoes were the culprit. Flights were delayed one day, and it carried into the following day, according to the flight attendants. Anyway, we left Palm Springs at 8:00 AM and landed in Dallas with only five minutes to make our connecting flight. Needless to say, we missed that flight.

We tried like the dickens to make it though. Most of the time, the only reason I ask for a wheelchair at the airports is to make getting to our connecting flights easier. I'm glad I did this trip. We had a wheelchair waiting in Dallas, however the man who was pushing me stopped just outside the boarding doors and told us to wait a minute. This was after telling him we had to hurry to make our connection. The guy went somewhere else (I assume to get another wheelchair passenger up the ramp). I growled under my breath and said through gritted teeth “We don't have a minute, we need to move now”. Well, my husband didn't wait. He grabbed the wheelchair and sprinted us through the airport, onto the tram thing, and dashed us to our gate. We missed it by about 5 minutes. Fun.

We asked the people at the counter what we needed to do. We had two options. We could wait in Dallas for a an hour and a half for the next flight to Atlanta, or we could fly to New York and then down to Atlanta. I believe that option was guaranteed, at least the flight to New York. Ugh. Was there any question? We chose to stay in Dallas. They put us on stand-by for another flight, told us where to go, and sent us on our way. We got the next gate and waited. And waited. And waited. The flight started to board and we saw the list for stand-by people. It was really long, and we were about 6 people down the list. We didn't make that flight. So, onto to next. Missed that one too. Finally the people behind the desk found us a flight and made sure we got on it. I'm not sure what made them make sure we got on, but I'm thankful they did. We finally got on the plane, and got to Atlanta around 9:30 PM. Long day.

The flights to Atlanta were peaceful, minus the five and a half hours in Dallas. The first flight back from Atlanta was also peaceful. The flight from Dallas to Palm Springs? Well, it was interesting. We were one of the first to board the plane (one of the nice perks of using a wheelchair at the airport). Another pre-boarder was a young woman with a very very young baby. Looked to be about 3 or 4 months old. She sat across the aisle from us.

As the plane filled up, two people sat behind us. With dog carriers. I looked at my husband and said, “This could be a very interesting flight”. What made it more “interesting” was the flight attendant. She just gushed and gushed over the two dogs. She said something about “liking puppies just fine, but not babies on a plane”. What? Did she really just say that? I don’t remember her exact words, but I was so mad.

What was the end result? The baby did better than the dogs. The dogs weren't bad, but they were more vocal than the baby. Yes, the baby cried in the beginning, for about 5 minutes. And then fell asleep. The dogs barked on and off (mostly off thank goodness) throughout the flight. And the woman wasn't much better. There for a while all we heard was “Settle.” “Bark.” Settle.” “Bark.” “Settle.” “Bark.” Yeah, it was annoying. I'll take babies on a plane any day.

So, that was our travel experience to and from Atlanta. I'll talk about the actual trip in my next entry. At least I can look back now and laugh at the situation. At the time it was happening, I was not pleased.

Found the Solution

I believe I have found a solution to a lot of my problems. Obviously cerebral palsy cannot be cured, however, the problems that go along with them can be somewhat fixed. How? Well, for me, it’s going to the chiropractor. My appointment was on Thursday, but I wanted to wait a few days just be sure. I believe the “jerk move” problem is now gone. Whatever is left over is just some confidence issues, and I’m working on that.

I’ll describe it this way. Have you ever been watching television for a while, and when you turn it off, you think to yourself “wow, that was really loud.”? You don’t realize the TV was too loud until it’s not on any more. That was how my back was. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I had been for a very long time. I just figured it was normal to be that achy and uncomfortable with cerebral palsy. I ached doing every little thing (even putting my hair into a pony tail was painful). I just didn’t really realize it until I saw the chiropractor.

                      

Let me just say, my back was a wreck. I always knew my neck was a mess, but my lower back was tilted and cock-eyed also. The doctor said I had some scoliosis, but it wasn’t anything to be worried about. I was also very tight and had a lot of muscle knots. Now I didn’t see myself, but my husband was in the room with me. While I was face down on the table, my right hip was a lot higher off the table than my left. As soon as he did a few pops, I was even. I immediately felt my lower back relax, and it felt good.

The middle of my back is fine, but it was out of alignment also. Few pops there, and it was straight. My shoulders and neck were the culprits of most of my discomfort. He adjusted my upper back while I was still face down on the table, and again it felt great. I think that was when he really got an idea of how tight I was up through the shoulders. He gave my husband a look of surprise apparently because I was so tight. Turned over on my back and that’s when the magic happened.

My neck is curved to my left and because of that, I get shooting aches (not really painful) down my arms every now and then. I get the same thing down my legs because of my lower back issue. Due to my cerebral palsy, it’s difficult for me to relax. Muscles and tendons were tight, and the doctor did a great job of loosening it all up. Then, kerpop! My neck got adjusted, and I just melted. All I good do was squeak out a “thank you” and then relaxed. He did the other side, and got another loud kerpop. My husband heard that one from where he was sitting. It was loud.

He also put “stims” on my upper back. It’s basically a tens unit and had me lay back down for a few minutes to let that do some work. Felt like a lot of needles massaging my shoulders and neck. After that, he brought me out for an ultra sonic treatment, which is basically heat therapy. That felt really good too.

And then it was over. He said to come in whenever I felt I needed to. Which is good. The chiropractor we saw near Seattle always told me to come in a certain amount of days in a week (at least in the beginning). So, my plan is to go once a month. In Seattle I think I went about once every three weeks. I may have to go back in sooner, at least in the beginning, but my goal is to get in there once a month. And whenever we go on vacation I’ll go in a few days before we leave.

I’m now able to sit up straight without any pain in my lower back. I can put my hair up with no pain in my neck and shoulders. I can bend over without groaning. I can stand up from the couch without groaning. I have to keep telling myself to stand up straight. That doesn’t hurt any more. I was constantly bent at the waist when I was standing.

So yes, big improvements. I do feel a bit achy in my upper back and shoulders, but heat should help that. I’m going to try to make it another week, and then go in I think. The chiropractor I saw was very nice. He is helpful and knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t try to up-sell you at all which I appreciate.

I keep laughing at myself throughout the day when I can do things that normally cause me discomfort. I can now sit cross legged without my left hip aching. My left hip has been giving me problems for a while now, and it’s fixed. It might not be for everyone, whether you have cerebral palsy or not, but for me the chiropractor is a huge deal. Yeah!

If you happen to live in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Indio areas) and you have a back issue, check out The Spine and Sport Clinic. I saw Dr. Patrick Van Loon. I highly recommend it and him.